Described herein is a gateway for a motor vehicle, having a connection device for connecting to a number of, particularly all, bus systems of the motor vehicle provided for communicating between different vehicle systems, and a computing device designed for controlling the exchange of data between the bus systems. Also described herein is a motor vehicle which includes the gateway.
In modern motor vehicles, a multiplicity of data needs to be exchanged between different vehicle systems. To enable this exchange to take place, bus systems are used within the motor vehicle, for example CAN buses, LIN buses and/or FlexRay buses. In this context, a multiplicity of buses is provided in most cases since bus systems have a limited bandwidth and characteristics suited better or worse for various purposes, and the quantity of data which can be transmitted via a bus system is restricted, therefore, and some bus systems are better suited for some applications than other bus systems.
Nevertheless, the exchange of data between vehicle systems which are connected to different bus systems is also necessary so that a data exchange between bus systems is also needed. For this purpose, it is known to provide interconnection control devices which are frequently also called a “gateway” and are connected to all bus systems of the motor vehicle between which a data exchange may become necessary. A computing device of the gateway which is connected to all these bus systems by way of a connection device controls the exchange of data between the bus systems, i.e. carries out routing.
Apart from these internal communication options, it is becoming more and more common to link motor vehicles also to external networks, particularly to the Internet. In this way, it is possible not only to implement comfort functions but also to call up current information directly connected with the handling of the motor vehicle, for example with respect to the road condition, weather conditions and the like. In this context, the connection to the Internet is established mostly via a mobile radio network.
In order to implement such an “online link” to an external network, it is known to provide a special control device which can be called, for example, an “online connectivity unit” (OCU). In such a control device, or connected to it, there can also be a communication device which can be implemented, for example, as a telephone module with an antenna and corresponding electronics. Such communication modules are frequently also called a “network access device” (NAD). A link to other vehicle systems on the basis of the control device is implemented via a bus system of the motor vehicle, modern motor vehicles frequently having a number of vehicle buses (bus systems). The control device, therefore, usually has a link to one of these bus systems in order to be able to convey data received from the network to other vehicle systems or to receive from these data directed to the network and forward them to the communication device.
The problem is then that the bus link used for the OCU is limited in its bandwidth and cannot be utilized for broadband data. In addition, the CAN bus of the vehicle is already extensively utilized and all data needed by the OCU or delivered data would have to be provided additionally here. If communication is needed to another vehicle bus than the one to which the OCU is connected, two vehicle buses have to be kept active so that a high zero-signal current is required.